Ben Macintyre, a correspondent of 'The Times' of London, on July 31 described Roger Casement as a traitor and a homosexual.

Casement was Irish, born in Dublin and captured in Kerry where his enemies dared not trust any jury to find him guilty of treason. So he was tried by a jury in London. Leading the prosecution was England's Attorney-General, FE Smith, who two years previously was organising a proto-Freikorps to defy the British government and crown forces in arms.

The London trial was a travesty. Casement's reputation rests alongside that of Robert Emmet, Theobald Wolfe Tone and Lord Edward FitzGerald. He needs no pardon from monarch or commoner. Casement was never charged, let alone convicted by a jury of his enemies, of offences of a sexual nature.

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